Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Justin Pierre James TrudeauBlinken makes first calls as Biden Secretary of State votes Canadian lawmakers to call Proud Boys a terrorist organization Biden talks about NATO and climate change in first presidential call with Frenchman Macron MORE on Friday unveiled new restrictions on international travel in the country.
Trudeau said at a news conference that Canada’s major airlines – Air Canada, West Jet, Sunwing and Air Transit – will suspend flights to all Caribbean and Mexican destinations from Sunday through April 30th.
Airlines “are making arrangements with customers currently traveling through these regions to arrange their return flights,” Trudeau said.
In addition, international flights are due to land at one of the country’s four airports: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, starting next week.
Trudeau said Canada will introduce mandatory PCR testing at the airport for travelers returning to the country “in the coming weeks.” Travelers will be required to quarantine at an authorized hotel for a maximum of three days while awaiting their results at their expense.
Travelers who give negative will give quarantine at home “under significantly higher surveillance and enforcement.”
Those who test positive will need to quarantine at designated government facilities to ensure they do not have any of the new, more contagious variants of COVID-19.
Trudeau also said the nation will soon require non-essential travelers to submit a negative COVID-19 test before entering the land border with the United States and said Canada is working on additional testing requirements for land travel.
Canada currently requires air travelers must test negative before embarking on international flights to Canada and all who enter the country must be quarantined or isolated for 14 days.
“With the challenges we currently face with COVID-19 both here and abroad, we all agree that now is not the time to fly,” Trudeau said.
There have been 770,427 coronavirus infections in Canada since the pandemic began, according to a Johns Hopkins University count, and more than 19,000 deaths.